How to write?
Just received my February a-n Magazine and I see that on p.16 an extract from my New Year’s Resolutions (Blog 15) has been quoted:
‘See more shows and write more reviews. Thinking about what we have seen, and writing about it is good for us.’
What I mean by this is that the time, thought and analysis that goes into writing a review usually means that the writer has had to think about the work they have seen on a deeper level, and I believe this feeds into our own practice.
I am currently writing about difficult things because I want to understand them.
I don’t find the process easy. I don’t mean the writing itself, but working out ones ideas, what one wants to say, and how best to say it.
Writing is a craft where less is always more. One easily writes 1500 words, and then has to hone it down to 750. And it is this process of self-editing that is so liberating. As you do this you find the essence of your idea, the real thought behind your words suddenly becomes clear.
The easiest reviews can be where you feel something extreme, you love it or hate it, so that the passion carries you through. The hardest are when you feel nothing, the work is so mediocre [in one’s own humble opinion]. And one thinks: ‘What’s the point?’ For this work. And for looking, thinking and writing about work in general.
Mediocrity is a passion-killer, in all aspects of life.
Then, occasionally, you see something. Something that appears to come from nowhere, that catches you off guard, and momentarily, your visual thirst, and sense for seeing something new and good is quenched. It is that inspirational.
‘That’s how I felt last night about seeing the work of painter, Phoebe Unwin, for the first time. Put crudely, there is a David Hockney – on largactil* – about them, more faded, and of course more abstract, but still that wonderful awkwardness, the pause, the hesitation, the small steps, you feel in the painters mind as the brush moves across the canvas to capture the idea of an image, something just out of reach.’
ends
*Largactil is an antipsychotic drug. Psychiatric patients taking it often suffer from restless limbs and the desire to keep walking on and on, using small shuffling steps, despite the lack of anywhere to go. This is commonly referred to as the ‘largactil shuffle’.
Part of the latter pargraph includes an extract from my review: ‘Phoebe Unwin: Between Memory and Observation’. You can read this review and others at Interface.
